No ****, when I lived in Tokyo a guy I knew got busted by the cops for drunk and disorderly. He was a pretty huge guy (ex marine juicer with serious roid rage) so they took no messing from him at all. It was hilarious, the cops came into the bar in riot gear and what appeared to be a huge roll of sticky tape. This stuff was about a meter wide and rolled up just like kitchen foil. So they stand on front of him with it pulled out about two feet or so and ask him to come quietly to which he tells them to piss off. Next thing the cops rushed in and wrapped the fucker up inside this sticky tape - the stuff must have been extremely tough and as sticky as super glue because this guy flew into a mad rage but could do absolutely nothing. The funniest part was when the guy tried head butting one the cops and they pushed him over and carried him out like a rolled up carpet. Classic! Only ever saw that stuff being used once but I could imagine it coming in very handy against asshole students too.

I've worked in behavioral high schools and juvenile programs where all we have to rely on is physical restraint and sometimes papoose boards and I would have loved to have sticky tape

No ****, when I lived in Tokyo a guy I knew got busted by the cops for drunk and disorderly. He was a pretty huge guy (ex marine juicer with serious roid rage) so they took no messing from him at all. It was hilarious, the cops came into the bar in riot gear and what appeared to be a huge roll of sticky tape. This stuff was about a meter wide and rolled up just like kitchen foil. So they stand on front of him with it pulled out about two feet or so and ask him to come quietly to which he tells them to piss off. Next thing the cops rushed in and wrapped the fucker up inside this sticky tape - the stuff must have been extremely tough and as sticky as super glue because this guy flew into a mad rage but could do absolutely nothing. The funniest part was when the guy tried head butting one the cops and they pushed him over and carried him out like a rolled up carpet. Classic! Only ever saw that stuff being used once but I could imagine it coming in very handy against asshole students too.

Lol yes. If they think they have the numbers (ie 7 to 1) they can act. Also it depends on the situation too: Japanese cops are great at busting street merchants. Foreigners can be a big target for them where they pull out all the stops, but frankly places like Roppongi need the heavy cleanup anyways and I'm all for it.

Otherwise they tend to stand around quietly asking for calm while hoping that either more backup comes or the problem goes away. The riot squad is different from the regular cops though. As it was a big gaijin I'm sure that they had all sectors on code red alert :qleft5:. When violent clashes break out they are they heavy guns.

I've also seen a drunk do the same thing as your friend against a group of maybe 6-7 cops that had clustered around him...and they basically took the abuse and let him make a scene (average sized young Japanese male). Waving your arms threateningly and touching an officer while yelling at them is a good way to get tasered back in 'Merica though (where men are men and every day is 4th meal day). Then again with a crime rate as low as Japan's you don't need your cops to be be tough and able to take on violent perps at a moment's notice...just to be polite.

No-one's trained to use improvised stuff like step ladders in this way?
It's great fun. Especially if you throw chairs into the mix.
We baulked at tables... you know... just in case anyone thought there was a WWE vibe going on.

Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.

If I wasn't at work I would try to get a Jackie Chan "First Strike" clip of the ladder fight in here...

We drew a similar parallel, then they showed a video of a guy with a katana being pinned to the wall by a ladder and blasted with a high pressure hose offa a fire truck.
Ordinarily, the cops would have just shot him, but I think it was a suicide-by-cop sorta deal and they were reluctant to help out, oddly.:shock:

Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.

Nothing japanese about it.
medieval europe had these 'catchers' too, even a bit more advanced.
the nightwatch guys would patrol the towns and when they encountered 'villains' they used a similar device like the japanese one to pin em, but the european version had an additional piece, a piece of metal at the bottom, hanging there.
once the guy was pinned they closed the metal bar so the U shape became an O shape and the guy was really locked.

not unlike the things they use to capture streetdogs, but it was made out of iron.

You mean apart from the fact that it's a modern Japanese invention based on an Edo period Japanese invention?

medieval europe had these 'catchers' too, even a bit more advanced.
the nightwatch guys would patrol the towns and when they encountered 'villains' they used a similar device like the japanese one to pin em, but the european version had an additional piece, a piece of metal at the bottom, hanging there.
once the guy was pinned they closed the metal bar so the U shape became an O shape and the guy was really locked.

not unlike the things they use to capture streetdogs, but it was made out of iron.